Monster
by CountessMecilia
Summary: Lucafont was unloved as a child. But can his new home give him the "love" that he needs? Rated PG-13 for sexual content. Contains slash.


_Look at yourself. Deformed... that's what you are. Your hands... you haven't got them. You just have hooks. Twisted pieces of metal, where soft, moving flesh should be. You're practically a machine... parts of your body being made out of metal. Are you a machine? Can you think like we do? Act like we do? Feel like we do? Love like we do? I doubt it. You're a shame to this family. To this world. You are a monster._  
  
Lucafont dropped the letter. It was not very old, but it had been bent, folded, twisted crumpled, and almost torn to pieces, in Lucafont's rage. For the parents of a young child to write such hateful words down on paper, for their own child to read... was incomprehensible. Every time reread it, his heart stung, as though it had been the first time.   
  
He picked up the letter, which he had thrown to the floor seconds earlier, and stuffed it in the small box. The box contained only a few things. Some tattered old clothes, some money- - not a lot... but enough to get by, and, of course, the letter.   
  
Lucafont knew he needed to unpack, unpack into his new home, but he had a hope... deep down inside... maybe if he didn't unpack, it would mean he could go back home. Back to his old home. He had only lived 15 years... what did he know about life? About living on his own? He knew nothing. But what else could he have done?  
  
Ever since Lucafont was a baby, his parents had hated him. He was a mistake. He wasn't supposed to be alive. And when he was born... his parents had been even more horrified. He had been born without hands. His arms were normal, up until where his hands should have been. There were just stubs. Nothing more, nothing less.   
  
His parents, Mr. and Mrs., who were still bitter about having a child, refused to pay for realistic-looking hands. His father, who was a blacksmith, welded him some crude hooks out of iron, when he was about 8 years old. He had made the hooks sharp, pointy, as if to make life even harder for the child. It was as though they thought that their child ruined the lives they wanted to have, so they should ruin it's life. Let it live... but barely.   
  
Anything he did, they found a way to blame it on his deformity. They told him that he was worthless. That he could do nothing. But he could, and he tried to show them... to prove to them that he was worthy. But that seemed to make them despise him even more. It was a never-ending spiral. And nothing could intervene.  
  
Then, one day, his parents did not come home after work. He waited, for days, not knowing what had happened. But they never came home. They had run away from him. Away from all their responsibility as parents... which they had emotionally abandoned long ago. After about a week, Lucafont recieved a letter in the mail. There was not a return address. Inside was a simple letter, that basically said they were coming back in a few days, and if he was still there... that they would kill him.   
  
But it was the last paragraph that was the worst, the one Lucafont had just finished reading. The one he read over and over. The one that told him the he was a monster. That he was not capable of human emotions. And, that... that was worse than any way that they could have killed him.   
  
And now he was here. At a man's house. The man hadn't identified himself very well... all he had told Lucafont was that he was an actor, and that his name was Olaf. Count Olaf, to be precise. He told Lucafont that he would give him a place to sleep, and food to eat, under the condition that he would act for his troupe, and help him with whatever "business" that he needed to get done. It didn't see too harmful, and it was his best shot at surviving in the real world.  
  
Lucafont finally took the things out of his box. He put the few clothes that he had brought away, in the small basket Olaf had provided. He stored his money in a case, under the small and lumpy bed, in the small room he was given. And then, he pulled out the letter. He didn't know what to do with it. And then his eyes spotted something, in the corner of the room. Matches. He picked them up, and carefully struck a match, an held it to the paper. The fire inched up the note, burning away all his fears. Once the note was mostly burned, he stamped out the flame, as though stamping out his old life.  
  
Now that the note was gone, and burned, he felt like a huge weight had been lifted off him. He finally felt slightly happy, joyous, even... to be on his own. Well, sort of. But that wasn't the point... the point was that he had been lucky enough to be offered the help of a charming man, with only minor tasks to do. He had been truly lucky.   
  
In the light of his new found happiness, he decided to go thank Olaf. If it hadn't been for him, he might be on the streets right now. Or, he might have been dead. Lucafont walked up the steps, the steps to Olaf's tower room, where he said that he would be most of the time. When he reached the top of the flight of stairs, he gingerly knocked, and a voice from inside called for him to come in.   
  
When he walked in, he saw Olaf writing at a small desk in the corner of the room. His pen moved quickly across the paper, leaving slopping writing on the white paper. There were other papers, just like that one, scattered over the desk. There were also many thrown in the small wastebasket, next to the desk.  
  
"So... what are you writing?" Lucafont asked, nonchalantly. "A script for a play... not that you would understand what it's like to write a play..." Olaf said, not looking up from his paper. "I-I understand." Lucafont said. And he did. He had done some art before... writing had been the only way he could express himself. His loathing for his parents. The pain of being an outcast. And everything else that had plagued his life, so far. Everything that Olaf seemed to understand.  
  
"Sir," Lucafont started to say... "Call me Olaf." He said, still not taking his eyes off his script. "Olaf..." he continued, "Can I ask you something? Why did you want to help me? Why did you want to save me?"  
  
Olaf slowly dragged his eyes up to Lucafont. They were piercing blue, and seemed to examine him from the inside out. "I wanted to help you, because... you were young. You had nowhere else to go. You seemed like you could help me. You looked like you could act. You were... attractive...." Olaf stopped there, and stared into Lucafont's eyes.  
  
"I-I'm at-attractive?" Lucafont asked, blushing. No one had ever told him that before. "Yes," Olaf replied, "You are. Am I... attractive, to you?" Lucafont looked at him. He really looked at him. He was fairly young... late twenties, possibly. At the most, early thirties. He was tall, and very skinny, a bit like Lucafont himself. He was good-looking. "You are," Lucafont told him, without hesitating, "Very attractive." Now, if he truly meant this, of if he was just saying it, because he felt he needed to return the compliment, is not known. What is known, is what Olaf said next.  
  
"Kiss me." Olaf whispered. And Lucafont complied. He walked over to the desk, and Olaf stood up. Right there... they began to share a kiss. Lucafont had a feeling he had never had before. Someone loved him. Genuinely loved him. And he... he knew that he loved him, back. He loved him. He loved him for helping him get away from his old life. He loved him for helping him move on. He loved him so much, in fact, that he did not object when Olaf began to undress Lucafont, and himself.  
  
They embraced in the darkness of Olaf's tower, and Lucafont knew that for once in his life, he was doing something right. Just then, Olaf flinched, and moved away. Their eyes both looked down, at Olaf's side. There was a long slash mark, and blood was beginning to rise up. It had been his hooks. He had harmed him, when he was trying to only love him.  
  
"I'm sorry." Lucafont whispered, recoiling. He was suddenly very aware that he was naked. "I didn't mean to. I am.... I am a monster." "No." Olaf told him, "No, you're not. You are not a monster." With that, he held him again, in a deep embrace.   
  
And it was then that he knew. This was where he was supposed to be. He now knew that his mother and father had been wrong. He could think like everyone else. He could act like everyone else. He could feel like everyone else. And he could love like everyone else. And this knowledge that Olaf had given him, could only be repaid, by forever serving Olaf. He knew that he was truly not... a monster. 


End file.
